came across this just as I've been reading about the High Middle Ages in The Golden Thread, and also the recent Fukuyama interview in nyt:
***
Q: So you define, there, the version in which recognition is equal. But you said you invented another word. “Megalothymia,” is it?
A: Yes, megalothymia. So that is the desire to be recognized as greater than other people. And I think that this is obviously a threat in a democracy, because a liberal democracy is based on the premise that all people, all citizens, are essentially equal.
But that’s not enough for a certain group, a certain subset, of human beings. They want to dominate. They want to be more than others. It takes, oftentimes, a very negative form of political domination — so you want to be a dictator, an autocrat.
But it’s also necessary because you can’t have any kind of human excellence if you don’t have the desire to be better than other people. If you want to be a great pianist or a football star or a great artist, I think that’s also driven by a certain kind of desire to be recognized as better than other people.
So I think that you can’t have a society of perfectly equal recognition. That has to be the basis for social cohesion, but you also can’t have a dynamic society without people who want something more than that.
***
...the crusades and jousting / tournaments being described (as they often are) as the way for High Middle Ages society to bleed off the megalothymia build-ups in the knightly elites.
Anyway, yes - teenage (and older) poets also have megalothymia...cooking slam scene a good way to release this pressure without sword fights...
This is excellent! I am judging the Connecticut History Day Tournament this weekend. Only a few students will be moving on to nationals, but the benefit of the tournament is widespread. I get to help all students improve their historical reasoning. I get to affirm the work all students did, even as certain projects naturally stand out. Of course, we need more mentors, but the fact that some kids get better mentorship does not invalidate the process.
My social class had piano ownership as feature but without lessons.
Fun poem, thank you -
came across this just as I've been reading about the High Middle Ages in The Golden Thread, and also the recent Fukuyama interview in nyt:
***
Q: So you define, there, the version in which recognition is equal. But you said you invented another word. “Megalothymia,” is it?
A: Yes, megalothymia. So that is the desire to be recognized as greater than other people. And I think that this is obviously a threat in a democracy, because a liberal democracy is based on the premise that all people, all citizens, are essentially equal.
But that’s not enough for a certain group, a certain subset, of human beings. They want to dominate. They want to be more than others. It takes, oftentimes, a very negative form of political domination — so you want to be a dictator, an autocrat.
But it’s also necessary because you can’t have any kind of human excellence if you don’t have the desire to be better than other people. If you want to be a great pianist or a football star or a great artist, I think that’s also driven by a certain kind of desire to be recognized as better than other people.
So I think that you can’t have a society of perfectly equal recognition. That has to be the basis for social cohesion, but you also can’t have a dynamic society without people who want something more than that.
***
...the crusades and jousting / tournaments being described (as they often are) as the way for High Middle Ages society to bleed off the megalothymia build-ups in the knightly elites.
Anyway, yes - teenage (and older) poets also have megalothymia...cooking slam scene a good way to release this pressure without sword fights...
This is excellent! I am judging the Connecticut History Day Tournament this weekend. Only a few students will be moving on to nationals, but the benefit of the tournament is widespread. I get to help all students improve their historical reasoning. I get to affirm the work all students did, even as certain projects naturally stand out. Of course, we need more mentors, but the fact that some kids get better mentorship does not invalidate the process.